Thanksgiving Rush Faces Shutdown Chaos and Spirit Airlines Uncertainty

Thanksgiving air travel is shaping up as a stress test for the U.S. aviation system: rising demand, a shrinking Spirit Airlines, and the looming threat of a prolonged government shutdown converging at once.

A slow but steady rise in holiday air travel demand is building across the U.S. as travelers head into the 2025 peak season, according to new booking and schedule data from Cirium.

The analytics firm reports that advance reservations for both Thanksgiving and the December holidays are tracking slightly ahead of last year, while carriers continue to recalibrate capacity after a volatile pricing cycle in late 2024.

Bookings Running Ahead of 2024

Based on online travel agency and GDS transaction data through October 8, bookings for Thanksgiving travel originating in the U.S. are up 2.2 percent year over year. The comparison measures trips from November 27–December 1, 2024, against November 26–30, 2025.

Christmas and New Year’s week is seeing a softer gain, with bookings up 0.68 percent for departures December 20–27, 2025, versus December 21–28, 2024.

Cirium notes that while the data is directional, the trend indicates continued resilience in consumer demand despite sustained inflationary pressures and fewer ultra-low promotional fares than last year.

Bookings for Thanksgiving travel originating in the U.S. are up 2.2 percent year over year.

Government Shutdown: Threat Raises Operational Risk

Industry analysts are now watching a different risk factor heading into the peak: a protracted federal government shutdown.

According to reporting from POLITICO, Republican leaders warned that the shutdown could begin to materially affect commercial aviation operations if it stretches into Thanksgiving week.

The current shutdown began on October 1 and would need to exceed the 35-day record from 2019 to overlap with the holiday rush — a threshold lawmakers acknowledge is now increasingly plausible.

As POLITICO notes, airport security screeners and air traffic controllers continue to report to work but are going unpaid during the shutdown, a dynamic that historically leads to staffing strain. Higher sick-out rates and no-shows previously contributed to cascading delays during the 2018-2019 shutdown, including brief disruptions to New York–area airspace.

House GOP Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain said the stalemate poses direct consequences for aviation staffing:

“As TSA agents and air traffic controllers show up without pay, Democrats brag they won’t budge until planes fall out of the sky. Really? Seriously?”

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer echoed the warning at a press conference in mid-October:

“Airports will be flooded with flight cancellations and delays amid the busiest time to travel all year, and the list goes on and on,” he said, urging Democratic leaders to “reopen our government.”

Travel groups say the key pressure point is the third and fourth week of November, when staffing reliability becomes critical and the system has little slack to absorb disruptions. Even modest workforce interruptions within TSA or ATC can flow quickly into terminal backups, ground stops, and missed connections during peak days.

Read the full article at Business Traveler.